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A Geography of Reading

"It is by reading novels, stories, and myths that we come to understand the world in which we live." -Orhan Pamuk

Crafting Emotional Honesty in In the Quiet by Eliza Henry-Jones

August 20, 2017 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

In the Quiet - Eliza Henry-JonesIt’s not hard to trigger a newish mom’s “what would happen to my family if something happened to me” fears, but it is hard to sustain a quiet story over 350 pages. In In the Quiet, Eliza Henry-Jones does both so beautifully that not only did I feel immersed rather than manipulated, but I stayed up many hours past bedtime to surrender to the world of this book and to the life of this family.

When the book begins, the narrator, Cate Carlton, is already dead and looking in on her family in poignant moment after poignant moment—like when her daughter (Jessa) gruffly stonewalls a grief counselor or a son (Rafferty) pulls a box of the last flowers Cate ever picked from beneath his bed. We don’t know how Cate died—the detail that ends up forming the central mystery of the novel—but the family moments are so touching and real that we quickly focus all our attention there and nearly forget that Cate is also missing this critical piece of information. Perhaps because the family story is so strong and each member so individual, the book is satisfying all the way through and I only occasionally noticed the bumpy edge of a clue being dropped on the page and when all is gently revealed, I realized I already had all the information that truly mattered.

The Objective Correlative

The jacket copy of In the Quiettalks about the grief this family alternately endures and learns to cope with, but the story is a lot richer than that. There are daily rhythms to be maintained and reinvented—specifically (and symbolically), there are horses to be fed, trained, and potentially sold to pay some of the family’s expenses.

One horse, Opal, is the most valuable, the most wild, and is lost to the family around the time of Cate’s death. Bass, Cate’s widower husband, is looking for Opal because she could help ease the family’s financial burden. Family friend Laura cares for Opal the way she once cared for Cate. Jessa’s relationship with Opal is the most dynamic—clinging hard to the horse even as others are trying to get Jessa to let go and ultimately making some strong, hard decisions. All this while Rafferty shies away from Opal for reasons that don’t become clear until much later. I thought I knew why pretty early. I was deliciously and wonderfully wrong.

By using Opal as an objective correlative like this, Henry-Jones’s displacing the family’s emotion onto the horse. Not only is this something that happens frequently in grief (you should have seen my family with a pile of jewelry and a stop watch after my grandmother’s death), this literary device allows Henry-Jones to explore on the surface what’s happening deep inside each of her characters. This is one crucial element of what makes In the Quiet heartfeltly intelligent rather than sappy and sad.

Characterization

If I had to pick a favorite character in this book, I couldn’t. And if I had to pick a least favorite, I also could not. Both, to me, are a sign that Henry-Jones’s created a well-written, round cast of characters by exploring their humanity and idiosyncrasies at a depth which does the characters, and the reader, justice.

If we look for a moment just at Beatrice and Laura, the two women who grow closer to Bass after his wife’s death, the healing and stealing of the widower being a trope in both literature and life, we find strong, interesting characters with motivations far beyond getting the guy. That’s wonderful in its own right, but it’s much more extraordinary when you consider that this book is being told first-person through the eyes of the woman who lost Bass when she died. Cate’s exploration of her history with both of these women, one her sister and the other her best friend, gives an understanding of the gifts they bring to the world of the book and to the wounds that they themselves are trying to heal. It also gives Cate a chance to heal and for us to care about and cheer for both women.

Narrative Time

As with blending bits of Cate’s history with Laura into the narrative of the present, Henry-Jones gently drops bits of flashback amidst the forward-moving momentum of this book. The result is a lovely, patterned collage of what Cate is seeing after her death and what she experienced while living. I have not taken the time to diagram the placement of the flashbacks, but the book’s rhythm is so soothing that I’d wager they happen at very regular intervals. The mastery of Henry-Jones’s prose is that the rhythm doesn’t feel episodic or repetitive and I don’t think most readers would notice it unless they went looking.

Tears were shed in the reading of this book, but not in the way I’d expected. Instead, my husband found me weeping only as I was wrapping up the final pages. Because of the craft and emotional honesty of In the Quiet, I was so engaged in the tender family portraits that I scarcely had time to mourn the family’s loss until the end. Or maybe it was that the family didn’t really lose their mom until the end. Or at least she didn’t lose them.

In the Quiet is a quiet, beautifully crafted, engaging book. I’ll admit I put off reading it because I didn’t know how good it would be. Don’t make the same mistake.

If you want to see how to transform a potential tear-jerker into a work of literature, or just read a really heartfelt story, pick up a copy of In the Quiet.

Filed Under: Books, South Pacific Tagged With: characterization, narrative time, Objective Correlative

Seeking Redemption in The Art of Crash Landing

September 13, 2015 by Isla McKetta, MFA 4 Comments

the art of crash landing melissa decarloReading the first page of the review copy of Melissa DeCarlo’s The Art of Crash Landing where self-proclaimed “fuckup savant” Mattie Wallace details how long it takes to cram your entire life into plastic garbage bags and outline some of the circumstances that got her there, I cringed. I thought, “Oh, great, a self-indulgent, first-person narrative about how the world done her wrong.” But I could not have been more wrong, and instead The Art of Crash Landing turned into a wild ride through a life wasted where redemption and forgiveness burn on the horizon.

Inside a Disaster

Despite my initial misgivings, it’s not long before we gain real insight into where Mattie’s thirty years of living went wrong as she packs up her car and heads on over to the last friend she has in the world—her former stepfather, Queeg. By the time she shows up on his doorstep pregnant, starving, and out of cash and options (page five), Mattie’s voice stopped grating on my nerves and I’ve started to worry for her. Now that’s an art.

There’s something about the way DeCarlo unpacks Mattie’s experiences—including the death of her alcoholic mother—that made me (and Queeg) want to cradle this wounded bird and nurse her into a better life. Part of it is how much Mattie owns everything that’s happened to her—even the things that were way beyond her control. She knows she’s bad news. She also thinks she was bad news when she and her mother first met Queeg seventeen years earlier. She doesn’t feel entitled to this man’s help—she simply has no other choice.

As plots usually go, another choice emerges and Mattie is somewhat shoved by fate to visit the town where her mother was born, raised, and seemingly run out of a long time ago. She runs into characters from her mother’s mysterious past and a few ghosts of what could have been, too. The resulting story, always tinged with Mattie’s over-ownership of the disasters around her, is a poignant unwrapping of how one person’s disaster can take down all their loved ones. It’s also a look at how to escape the life you were given and thrive on your own. Most importantly, it’s a look at how we all have reasons for becoming who we are—our parents, our grandparents, and us—and how to live in the part of that cycle we have control over.

Pacing a Narrative Race

I should have known from DeCarlo’s opening words, “Twenty-seven minutes is, if anyone ever asks, exactly how long it takes to cram everything I own into six giant trash bags” that this book would be fast-paced. What I couldn’t anticipate is that at just over 400 pages what a fast read it would be and that it would cover such a short time period—about a week.

When I saw the day markers dividing sections of this book, I did do the math and worry for a minute that The Art of Crash Landing would be filled with a Proustian level of detail, but thankfully I was wrong. Instead, DeCarlo delves into the myriad threads and subplots of small town life that came to make Mattie’s mother’s life (and consequently Mattie’s) what it is. So while on the surface the narrative covers only that short week, it actually uncovers three generations of secrets and daily life—the things that make us all what we are. I won’t spoil any of that for you here, but the tight narrative does not disappoint and the cast of characters is round and wonderfully nuanced.

The Personal Side

I’ll admit that 86% of my judgment of Mattie comes from the fact that I was watching her wreck her life and the life of her unborn child just weeks after giving birth to my own baby. Plus, coming from a background where I feel responsible for, well, everything, I saw some of myself in Mattie. And I did not like what I saw. Mattie’s story fits perfectly in with the narrative of my generation—a generation that far too often had to shout, “I’m supposed to be the kid not the parent.”

Reading this book helped me let go of some of the responsibility I feel for the entire world and helped me channel that feeling into the appropriate place—taking responsibility for what I do today for myself and for my child. Which, now that I am the parent, is pretty good timing.

Is The Art of Crash Landing a quick read? Yes. Could it be called “chick lit”? Yes again, but in the best of ways. Despite my initial reservations, I really enjoyed reading this book. Most importantly, I learned something from it.

For a fast read with a lot of heart, pick up a copy of The Art of Crash Landing from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Filed Under: Books, USA & Canada Tagged With: characterization, dysfunction, melissa decarlo, pacing, the art of crash landing

Creating and Sustaining Empathy in Alphabet by Kathy Page

August 9, 2015 by Isla McKetta, MFA 2 Comments

alphabet - kathy pagePicking up Alphabet by Kathy Page, I had no idea what to expect. I hadn’t read the back or the press release that accompanied my review copy. For all I knew, it was some experimental work based entirely on word play. It wasn’t, the narrative and language are much more conventional than that, but I’m so glad I went into this book blind because it allowed me that rare chance to encounter the story and the characters on the author’s terms with all the craft of reveal that entails. So if you want to read this excellent book as blind as I did, stop reading here. Trust me, it’s worth it.

The Man Behind the Crime

When we first meet Simon Austen, he’s being inducted into prison. His clothes have been taken and a guard is examining his property, which seems to consist solely of a sealed letter written by his mother and given to him by a social worker. We can tell from the language that the story is taking place in Britain. Simon seems young and shell-shocked. We have no idea what crime he’s committed or how long he’s in for but already Page has made him seem vulnerable and already it’s easier to care more about the man than what he did. An unusual slant in today’s society and one that makes the book.

“He thinks how he could die here. Be killed. Start using drugs and do the job himself. Just get old… and all of a sudden, how badly he wants what he’s not had, all of it, even not knowing what it is!” – Kathy Page

In the second chapter we see Simon trying to learn to read. I immediately had sympathy for someone who the system had failed and who was trying to make better of himself. It might help that my grandfather taught inmates to read, but watching Simon, at an age where he’s eligible for prison, learn the alphabet and how letters make sounds is truly poignant (without being sappy). We see touches of his concern for the health of his tutor and then we see Simon succeed well enough that he begins writing letters for others.

We’re getting to know the man behind the crime and we’re learning to empathize with his situation, even before we have any idea what landed him behind bars in the first place.

Ambiguity

Simon is not always on the up and up, and (based on my coursework in criminology rather than my own personal experience) this book shows a realistic picture of prison and prisoners. Simon tries to fill his need for human connection by starting a correspondence with a stranger. Trouble is he lies about who (and where) he is. As a kid, I remember my mom’s Avon lady was married to a man in prison so every visit we had with her included at least some amount of time talking about his wrongful conviction. This turn in the story made me deeply uncomfortable, but because I’d already bonded a bit with Simon, it served to flesh him out as a three dimensional character rather than turn me off completely.

We do eventually learn what Simon’s done, and it is not pretty, but by that time we understand who he was when he did it and where he was coming from. It doesn’t excuse his actions, but it does give a lot of context especially as he tries and both succeeds and fails at bettering himself.

One of the things I’m finding most interesting about writing this review is how much I want to judge him even as I want to humanize him. I think that says a lot about how we perceive prisoners/criminals in this society. Even though Simon is deeply human (aren’t we all) and in many ways a victim of his circumstances, a part of me still deeply fears his early lack of control.

The beauty of Page’s writing is she allows the wholeness of Simon to evolve in front of us without passing her own judgment. The story is carefully crafted, but because the range of experience was so rich, I never once felt emotionally manipulated. Instead I felt opened up and like I was being allowed to see Simon and his experience from new and interesting angles.

The Alphabet

One of the things I’m going to continue to ponder about Alphabet is the relationship of the title to the book as a whole. There are easy references like when Simon is learning the alphabet in order to learn to read or later when he constructs an alphabet-type narrative for a prison newsletter. There are also deeper references including the alphabet of women he learns from along the way and the alphabet of the words he tattoos upon his body. Still, I think there’s something more here and if you read the book and want to share your ideas, I’d love to hear them.

It’s not often that I read a book set in prison. It’s even less often that I read a book set in early 1980s Britain. Even more rare is that I’d enjoy the combination of the two, but Alphabet is a stunningly well written and deeply human book. The nuance of relationships and character development is hard to equal. Yet another first class book from Biblioasis that’s stretched my reading horizons, even if Alphabet falls as far from your normal reading subject matter as it does mine, I highly recommend trying out this book.

If this review made you want to read Alphabet, pick up a copy from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Filed Under: Books, Western Europe Tagged With: characterization

Family Dysfunction and Narrative Tension in Bloodline, the Netflix Original Series

April 5, 2015 by Isla McKetta, MFA 1 Comment

Remember the old days when we’d all gather around the water cooler and discuss who shot JR or of Rachel and Ross were ever going to figure things out? Nowadays we’re all watching our own shows at our own paces and unless you’re a fan of Game of Thrones or Mad Men, you mostly miss out on this cultural sharing moment. Well, I finished a fantastic new series on Netflix last night and I want to share it with you here at our virtual water cooler. Let me tell you about Bloodline.

Building Tension

When Danny Rayburn comes home to the Florida Keys to help his family celebrate the dedication of a pier in their honor, the balance of that prominent family is upset and things start to go wrong almost immediately. It starts small as Danny (Ben Mendelsohn) ducks his brother John (Kyle Chandler) at the bus stop only to show up directly at the inn their family manages. But these little upsets are keys to the tension underlying the family dynamic and (as in all good narrative) that tension develops and soon explodes.

The tension seems to center around Danny, the black sheep who wants to be the prodigal son, but Danny is really not just a source of tension but also the Iago—the key to unraveling the smooth facades of everyone around him. Within the first few episodes we see that successful lawyer and youngest daughter Meg (Linda Cardellini) is in a serious relationship with someone else than the guy she is screwing in the backs of cars. Kevin (Norbert Leo Butz) is barely holding on to the pretension that his marriage isn’t headed for divorce. And John is finding it harder and harder to be the upstanding boy scout of a detective that he so desperately wants to be.

I can’t tell you how the story develops (it would spoil all your fun) but I can tell you that after watching an episode or two at night I felt all balled up with tension (and couldn’t wait to watch more). The writers have a very subtle way of focusing each episode around one character’s relationship with Danny even while advancing the story as a whole and it never feels formulaic.

Dysfunctional Families

No matter what Tolstoy said about unhappy families, there are similarities in the threads of dysfunction and one of the things I enjoyed most about watching Bloodline was trying to tie the characters in this show to members of our own families. It was also instructive to watch the master manipulation of characters like Papa Rayburn (Sam Shepard) as he pits his children (oh-so-subtly) against one another and Mama Rayburn (Sissy Spacek) as she feeds the conflict.

What deliciously complicates the dysfunction is the nuances in the character of Danny (and the excellent portrayal by Mendelsohn) that made me hate him, pity him, fear him, and then flat out wonder. To have a character where our understanding shifts and evolves that completely is pretty much unheard of and it’s the main reason I recommend this show.

As Danny’s poking at his siblings and parents, the whole family starts to unravel and secrets are revealed that make you look at all of the characters in a different light. This is such a gorgeous mirror of how small (and big) changes in life shift and re-shift our family relationships. It’s something I’m thinking about a lot as my pregnancy changes my relationship with some family members (I haven’t felt closer to my dad in a long time) and helps me see others more clearly.

I could go on and on about other amazing craft elements in Bloodline (like characterization) but I’m bound to reveal something I’d rather you get to discover on your own. If you like a good mystery and a well conceived and acted show, go watch Bloodline already. Then come back and tell me what you thought.

Filed Under: Film, USA & Canada Tagged With: bloodline, characterization, family dysfunction, narrative tension, review, tv

Capturing Anomie in City Water Light & Power

March 17, 2014 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

city water power and light - matt pine

Matt Pine’s first novel City Water Light & Power so clearly captures the experience of living in a modern day city that at times I wasn’t sure I could go on reading it. The basic gist is that friends Jake and Michelle navigate the city of Chicago as it changes and they do. Touching on everything from urban renewal to mental illness, the book provides insight into what creates a lost generation.

Capturing a City (and a Life) in Transition

The central metaphor that pairs the changes in Jake’s and Michelle’s lives to the changes in Jake’s neighborhood is strong. It’s fascinating to read as Jake’s neighborhood bar and everything he loves about the place he is living starts to give way to gentrification while he faces a personal struggle with how he fits in the shiny corporate world. You hope that his chances are better than that of his favorite bar, but it doesn’t seem likely.

Meanwhile, Michelle seems as wrapped up in the opportunities of urban renewal as she is in her developer boyfriend. Wrapped up in, but also succumbing, albeit in a more socially acceptable way.

If you’ve lived in a city and worked too many hours just to pay too much money for the roof over your head and a bunch of trappings you’re not sure you even want, this book will feel familiar.

Reading for Escape

At times, the book felt altogether too familiar. I don’t normally consider myself an escapist reader. Sure, I spend the odd afternoon with Fletch, but usually I’m chasing big ideas from far away. Reading City Water Light & Power made me realize how much emphasis I put on the “far away” in my reading.

I started this book on the bus the morning after the time change. I was running late and feeling frustrated about rushing in to a day that I felt I had no control over. I wanted to meet expectations and be on time, but I wasn’t sure what those expectations were and I wondered where I left mine along the way (or whether 20 minutes really mattered to anyone). As Jake works his soul-crushing job doing QA for a call center, Pine does an excellent job of showing just how hard we’ve all worked to take the meaning straight out of life.

At the same time, Michelle spends much of her time drunk or stoned enough to tolerate her job as a paralegal with a jerk of a boyfriend. There is a glimmer of hope as she gets accepted to law school, but given how much she hates the people she works with, you have to wonder what she’s rushing toward.

Reading about the suffering of others gives me a way to think about the way the world works and how we can all work to improve it. It affords me a macro-level view because I can sympathize while maintaining my own experience. Reading about Jake and Michelle hit too close to home. The book is well written, but I found myself wanting to get away from it before I became mired in self pity.

This might be an excellent read if you have better boundaries with books than I do. It might also be good for a reader of a different generation or from a rural area or even another country who wants to understand why people who seem to have it all are so freaking miserable. But if you’re in the rat race, it will likely hit too close to home.

A book has to be well written to elicit this kind of visceral response in me, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to read it again soon. Maybe I’ll pick it up when I’m old and retired to see what ever I was whining about.

Passive Characters

Passive characters are a huge no-no in fiction workshops, but it often feels like they abound in modern stories and novels. At a panel I attended at AWP, a professor confronted the idea that passive characters can serve as a political statement–to show how oppressive a situation is. City Water Light & Power definitely wants to fall into this category.

And while this sense of oppression is well portrayed, the passivity (especially of Michelle) was absolutely maddening to me. That must have been the point. But the book did not incite me to revolt against my corporate life or the world around me. And for this passive character as political statement thing to have worked for me, I would have had to come out of the book feeling that rush to change rather than the urge to drink myself into oblivion.

What do you think about passivity as political statement? Did Pine succeed when he made me feel stuck or should the book have done something else? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

If you want to see if I’m being a wimp, pick up a copy of City Water Light & Power from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Filed Under: Books, USA & Canada Tagged With: characterization, city water light & power, matt pine, passive

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Polska, 1994

Polska 1994

Clear Out the Static in Your Attic

Clear Out the Static in Your Attic_cover

Recent Posts

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What I’m Reading

Isla's bookshelf: currently-reading

Birds of America
Birds of America
by Lorrie Moore
The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc.
The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc.
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The Souls of Black Folk
by W.E.B. Du Bois
Bomb: The Author Interviews
Bomb: The Author Interviews
by BOMB Magazine
On Writing
On Writing
by Jorge Luis Borges

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